Come to the Edge...

So many things swirling inside me at the moment.  So many.

I am really sad today for so many reasons, many of which
I don't think I could identify - mainly because I haven't
pinpointed why I am truly upset.

Part of it has to do with "A."  I so feel like I should just get
over it, and get on with it.  I have no idea how much time
I have, so do I really want to spend energy on someone who
is through with me?

I saw a quote today that I believe was from Marianne Williamson,
and it was something to the effect that living in the present is
the best way to get over the past.

As with many things...so easy to say.

In the past I felt "A's" love. In the past I thought I had someone
who really loved me and cared about me, and was going to be
someone I was going to have a great story to tell one day about.
In the past, I thought I had finally found "the" one.  In the past,
there was such sweetness coming from him, and we shared an
incredible connection.  In the past, I had someone that I could
lean on, and someone I thought was there for me, even when
we couldn't physically be together.

In the present, I don't have any of that.

It hurts so much.

It is such a deep, searing pain.

To be fair, I am fairly certain that part of the pain has nothing
to do with him.  I am fairly certain it has something to do with
the pain of a child who felt abandoned by her own parents.

In some logical way, I can see this as a good thing.  I can see
his leaving as a way for me to feel - and deal - with the pain
rather than covering it up.  I can say this, even as I am sitting
here, typing through sobs and blurred vision from the tears.

I don't want to leave this life without feeling like there is one
person who loves me madly, deeply, completely - and isn't
going anywhere.  If I was to die from cancer, I know that
would be really selfish on my part.  But I certainly hope not
to.

I know we are supposed to love ourselves.  I know that people
say you can't love someone else without truly loving yourself.
But I don't know if I believe that.  I have madly, deeply,
completely loved some people in my life. I suppose I should
feel good about that.  How many have a chance to love the
way I did with as many as I have?

But could ONE please come and STAY.  Especially at this
point in my life.  My heart center hurts so much.  It feels like
there is a crater there.  I have done the best I can.  I have loved
with an open heart.  I have loved without expectation.  I
have so much to give to someone.

And yet, so many someones have chosen other paths.

When the time for me to die comes, I want to be in love with
life.  I want to be in love.

I think there is a little girl inside of me terrified to be alone.
I remember as a kid wondering what would happen to me
if my grandparents died.  There was an underlying sense of
insecurity.  I am wondering if I never got over it, if I never
dealt with it.  But even if that is the case, it doesn't seem right
to me that I can't seem to be with someone.  Why can't I heal
through knowing that someone can be there for me?  Why
can't I have someone that can love me in that way?

And why is it that I keep opening my heart?  I know that
closing it is not the way to go.  I know it.  I am so certain.
And yet it takes everything I have to continue to do that.
I don't know if "A" realizes, or even cares, what an incredible
gift I gave him.  It took everything I had to open myself up
to him.  So much told me not to.  I was terrified.  But there
was something bigger and stronger that told me to.

And this is what I got as a result?

I did it knowing that things might not work.  I did it knowing
that nothing is certain.  I did it without any assurances.
I just did it.

How can something that was once so incredibly, amazingly
beautiful end with such a painful thunk?

I just want to scream.  I just want to yell.  I just want to die.

I know I shouldn't say that.  The last time I said anything
that resembled that was only a couple of months before I
was diagnosed.  Some people say that words have energy.
But I don't see how not saying it makes a difference. If
anything, I would think it would help to get it out of me.

Who the fuck knows?

Who the fuck knows anything?  I certainly don't know a
damn thing other than what I know this moment which is
that I am in a whole lot of pain.  That I am sobbing.  That
I can hardly breathe.  That I wish I could stop feeling what
I am feeling. I wish it could just stop.

It feels like a release I have never had before.  Maybe I
needed to get to this point.  This horrible, painful point.
This point that my nose is so full I can't even breathe.

I told "A" I hated him at one point.  I feel so much anger
coming up inside of me.  At first it felt like it was in relation
to him, but the feeling of "how could you just leave me
like that and stop loving me?" feels more like it belongs to
my mother and/or my father.  And, who knows, maybe
even my grandparents for them leaving me sooner than I
was ready.

Would I have ever been ready?

How does one know how to be ready?  How does one
feel safe? secure?  Most of my life I feel like I lived on a
precipice of impending disaster.  As an adult, though,
you are supposed to know how to deal with things.  You
are supposed to have it together.  In the process of pretending
to get it all together, I wonder how much hurt and pain and
devastation I have covered up.

I have a feeling this could be a water shed moment for me.
Living on the edge of disaster is no way to live.  I never
recognized this before...the way I was living,
or the realization of how I have been living.

But that is exactly what it has been.  And when I have
felt like I loved someone it was like my attention was
elsewhere.  It was like I had some peace.  No wonder,
in some part, this feels so devastating.  Unconsciously
feeling love for someone who gave me the experience
of love back was a way I was rescued from that feeling
of impending doom.  I feel like I have lost the love, and
the doom returns.

Damn unconscious mind.

I say that with the full awareness that I always tell people
that it is just trying to help us in the choices it makes,
and that it goes with what it knows.  And my unconscious
felt it knew that love would save me from precipice of
devastation so love was a good thing.  The only problem
comes when the love no longer is.  It tried to "save" me,
but it had no say over what another would choose.

And for as special as each person and each time has been,
each one has been increasingly more painful at the end.
I would have thought it was the depth to which I opened
my heart, but I now am thinking that it isn't so much that
as the fact that returning to the precipice has me that much
closer to the scary edge.

Maybe each one of these experiences has served to bring
me to the edge to show me that I would be OK here.
Maybe it got me closer and closer because it was the
only way I would see it.

I still think my heart was open...but love is such a beautiful
thing that the pain has to come from somewhere/something
else.

I am calmer now.

Significantly.

I guess I really did hit on something tonight.

Thank you, "A."

Don't you hate contradictions?

There are times I see perceived contradictions in what people say vs what they do. Someone might ask others to share what they have done or what is important to them, but not share what I have done or what is important to me. While I can appreciate there may be all kinds of reasons for this, on the surface it strikes me as a contradiction. 

Once I asked a person that I had helped for help. This was a person who - even in the same conversation we were having at the time - had acknowledged and thanked me greatly for that help. When the person declined, I made the comment that I was learning to ask for help. After all, if you don't ask, you don't even get a chance at a yes. Their response was that they were learning to say no. 

Ok. So I get that.

At the same time, given that I was acknowledged for what I had given freely, it seemed to me that I was perhaps not the best person to practice on. Perhaps interestingly, due to that, and another thing that was said in that same conversation, I no longer have a personal relationship with that person. Also interestingly, it was mentioned by that person - in that same conversation - that perhaps I could help them with something else.

Was there something missing in that conversation? Perhaps. Perhaps it would have been worth another conversation to say these things directly. I was just really put off at the time so it just didn't seem worth it. Maybe one day I will think otherwise. But in the meantime....

Why do I tell you all of this?

Sometimes I don't think we can always see how we might seem to contradict ourselves. If there is ever a time in which I seem to say one thing and yet do another, I would like to ask you to ask me about it/point it out to me. I would like to think I am mostly consistent these days...but the unconscious is really good at trying to cover up its tracks.

Thanks.

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Drawing Conclusions

When I was a kid, I used to draw a lot.
An aunt of mine got me a kit to learn
to draw some pictures with various
charcoals.  I could draw almost anything
I saw - except people.

I imagine the reason I couldn't do people
was because it probably needed to be too
perfect.  I suspect the "imperfections"in
inanimate objects are less noticeable, or
at least more tolerable.

I have been wanting to draw more and
more and am finding myself trying to
find things to do.  I have never been
good with coming up with things in
my head.



There are a few things that I will be sharing soon that were inspired by things that I
have seen.  The above image is one of them.  I saw a picture of a tree on Facebook,
and I thought it would be interesting to see if I could draw it.  The thing was that I
didn't have the patience to recreate it, exactly.  I wasn't even sure how to, given
some of the detail.    But what I did was take the essence and the idea of it, and
created what you now see.  Basically I used it as an idea, and then I winged it.

I think life is probably very much like that, except that we often want to get things
just right.  If I had patience, I might have tried to replicate it exactly, but then instead
of moving on to something else, and sharing this with you, I would still be working
on it.  I guess there would be nothing wrong with that, but while it might give me
something in one way, it might limit me in others.

It would seem that is the epitome of the life we live.  Some choices expand us.
Some choices limit us.  I just wish which one it was was as obvious as this drawing
example.  Although, quite frankly, I didn't sit there and think about these things
before I did it, I just did it - which is likely how most of us live life.  We just do
things and live with the results.

I think we may do things automatically a certain way because it works for us for
it to be that way.  Our unconscious thinks so, any way.  I am not sure what to do
with this info at the moment.  My head hurts, and I am tired.  I guess I will have
to leave the finer detail for another time.

Kinda ironic, I think.

It Feels Like Starting Over...

I am not really starting over.

If I was, I would have a full head of
curly, deliciously wonderful hair.

But at the same time, my next
treatment will be using a new
chemotherapy, thanks to the
reaction one of the first two had.

I have been told that likely my
symptoms will be similar to what
I have had up until now.  BUT
there is the caveat that everyone
is different, and one never knows.
I could even have no reaction.

So even though I kinda got a
routine from my treatments
so far, a new "known" in my
unconscious (new familiar
territory), I am now about to
embark into new territory.

My apple cart has been upset.

It is almost humorous to me that
I want the discomfort I know
rather than the discomfort I haven't
a clue about.

It is almost humorous because
much of life is like that, it just
isn't so blatantly obvious.

We fight for the familiar, whether
it works, or not, whether it is
healthy, or not, and whether it
is good for us, or not because the
good we get is in the familiarity
of it all.

I have been feeling tired and
unsettled for a few days now.
I am guessing this has something
to do with it.

Soon the mystery will be gone,
and my new experience will begin.
It just so happens it coincides with
the eve of my half way mark.

A part of me soooo wants to sleep
at the moment.  Another part is my mind,
which is reeling right now.  It doesn't
want to shut down.

Guess we will see how it all turns
out as I am about to begin another
blog on another topic...